~ When three quarters of our household were diagnosed, it suddenly explained a lot. And led to a million more questions. It redefined us and how we do things and so far…. things are better. Way better. Here is our journey, with all the things we're learning, in the hope that others might benefit too.

My archery coach said something profound last session. ‘The bow is perfectly capable of hitting the centre, every time. What prevents it from doing so is interference from the archer.’ He meant the slight tilt, the gripping, the minute angle shifts – everything we do that prevents that arrow going straight, time after time.
And so, my job as an archer is to be as loose as possible and simply provide the potential energy and point it in the right direction. Let the bow demonstrate its full capability.

I remembered this tonight when I was re-reading a Buddhist text about Buddha-nature. That we are all capable of being Awakened beings and possess all the qualities needed. It is our thoughts, attitudes etc which steer us away from that direct path.

We are in a low at the moment. There’s too much too handle and it feels like there are no answers and no support that is helpful. We’re out of ideas, energy and inspiration.

And that’s something that bothers me immensely. It seems that despite all the studies, blogs, forums, ‘experts’ etc no-one has any real solutions to the problems that drive ADHD families into the ground.
When you’ve read everything, tried everything, seen every specialist – who tell you you are doing an incredible job (.. er…. so why are we here in your office?) heard every speaker and expert… and the problems are worse than ever and looking like they’ll only worsen. Where to then?

There is nothing worse than the utter despair and hopelessness that comes from watching a child suffer. Especially when they’re doing it to themselves and can’t see it to stop it, and won’t listen to fix it.

It feels even worse working with similar kids who are just that little bit older and recognising all of their issues in my own child.
I feel as though I’m watching a train wreck in slow motion, and I’m powerless to stop it.

I’m so thankful for my incredible husband. He is my rock. We are both aware of how lonely we feel. ADHD isolates, destroys relationships, costs you opportunities and sucks the life and laughter from even the strongest, most optimistic of families.

At some point, I’m hopeful we’ll be thriving again and I’ll be able to share our journey out of darkness, but for now there is just despair.

‘With a small ‘d’, dharma and dhamma mean the smallest elements of existence that make up a moment of consciousness, such as the heat of a room, the background sounds or the lingering taste of the orange you have just eaten, the smell of incense, the thoughts you have. All these scraps of information are dharmas or dhammas. They are in a continuous pulse of movement, of coming to be and ceasing to be; nevertheless, we experience them as continous reality. THE DHAMMAPADA

I came across the above snippet last night and it has stayed with me all day. Somehow, pausing to consider the tiny, flashes of experience which occur as part of the day has made impermanence so much more meaningful.
I often reflect on impermanence, but I seem to have always considered it in relation to the ‘bigger’ things: the big emotions, difficulties, world events; acknowledging their impermanence certainly and that they (in the grand scheme of things) are simply flashes in the pan of the universe, but somehow today focussing on the impermanence of the micro-elements of my experience caused a shift for me.
Today during my short morning meditation, the things which normally would have distracted me and caused me irritation, someone banging pans in the kitchen, cars/trucks in the distance etc seemed nothing. Each one, I noted as one of those micro-elements, making up consciousness and then gone, only to be replaced with the next sound, feeling, observation. And I felt silly for having been irritated by these things in the past, when they really were so very fleeting. I realised that so much of my attention had been taken up in my annoyance over the disturbance to the tranquility I was trying to find, that I had inadvertently disturbed it further. I had created suffering.

I noticed more of these during the day, being with my children, and felt happy that I was noticing the precious fleeting moments and ‘being’ in them far more fully as a result.

The whole family has recently joined an archery club. A ‘Come and Try’ session led us into this, but the feeling of calm and peace is what had us go back.

Since then we’ve bought our own bows and now each morning before work, and on return from work, I head down to the paddock to shoot for a good half hour at least.
I can’t believe this isn’t a recognised therapy for ADHD.

Standing alone in the paddock feeling the sun on my face as it rises and the cool morning air all around me as I nock the arrow is something really special. The day is new and I’m already out there enjoying it ahead of most other people.

I take a deep breathe, bring my awareness to my body, posture and balance and raise the bow, looking ahead at the target. I draw the string to my face – feeling it rest against my cheek – never taking my eyes off the point of focus, pause … and release. Thud.
As I squint to see the result, my hand is already reaching out to my quiver for the next arrow.
And the whole process is repeated.

There’s peace in the simplicity of this ritual. It’s a meditation that lasts only a few moments, but instantly has me in ‘flow’ and time freezes as I find myself repeating the sequence over and over, for hours when time permits.

Positive Psychology is a strong focus in our household as we aim to help our children manage their ADHD and anxiety (and it helps us too, of course).

Those of us with anxiety have a tendency to over-dramatise and fixate on the negatives. Our most recent tact in dealing with this has been to ask, ‘How long did that moment really last?’ and ‘Do we really want to drag that 5 second moment out so it affects us the rest of the afternoon?’ It’s done, leave it there. And that simple advice helps.

Additionally, we’re revisiting Gratitude Journals, but this time with more emphasis on the causal effects of these positives. The aim here is to highlight how much control we have over positives – how often we have done things which contribute to them ourselves – so that we can try to reproduce them (self-efficacy). And also, to allocate sincere gratitude to other people, specifically, when they have helped make our lives wonderful.

The kids have also created academic and social goals for the year whose progress will be reflected on in their journals. They fill them out at the dinner table straight after dinner (where we’ve discussed our day so positives are fresh in their minds) and are actually enjoying them.

So in case anyone is looking to create something like this for their children, I thought I’d share the questions which appear on each page of the journals.

List 3 things you were grateful for today.

1.

2.

3.

What caused each of these to happen? (Someone’s generosity? Your courage/persistence?)

Recall a happy memory and describe it in detail.

Describe one kind thing you did for someone else today.

What is one thing you did today which will take you closer to achieving your goals?

The Husband has always been a keen gamer and carefully negotiated with me to get a VR set today. I myself am NOT a gamer – the games themselves agitate me and I resent the life-sucking lack of something to show for any time spent playing them

But Hubby convinced me to have a go at the VR set…. Wow. Just wow.

I’ve had quick trials of VR before and wasn’t too impressed, but this… this was something else.

And after 15mins of play (understandably there were impatient kids wanting a go) I was left with a mind full of questions… and concerns.

First thing is the kids won’t be playing any fighting/shooting type games on it – period.

Second is… far out, I could seriously start to enjoy gaming…..NOOOOOOO!!!!!

And there were others but they are for another post.

The experience is incredible. There’s a period of transition as you go from reality to entering the world. At first you are aware that you are ‘in the game’ but very quickly, with the ability to ‘see’ 360 degrees with no visual or sound interruptions from the real world, you forget that nothing is real.
In the scenario I played I was in a wizard’s castle, standing behind a large table with a cauldron and various items on the table in front of me. I was able to pick these up and manipulate them. The room itself is huge and the detail was amazing. A movement to my left caught my eye and turning around I saw it was rat. He scuttled around throughout my session doing his thing. I cast a spell with the items and turned things into butterflies which flew up and around me and then landed gently on my outstretched hand. I watched them up close and in detail, glowing and softly beating their wings.
It was beautiful.
And what was interesting was my physical responses to nothing but image and sound. My husband laughed at my incredulous delight and the fact that I had stooped, as he had to look at the shelf beneath the table. And been careful to move so as to not bump my head on a protruding part of the table, a hindrance which in reality did not exist. I believed it was there and so I acted accordingly – despite the fact that somewhere in my consciousness I knew it wasn’t real… that part was inaccessible in the moment.

And it makes me think… we talk about cages of our own making, but what an amazing example presented itself today.

How many more obstacles do I navigate around purely because I believe them to be real?

An interesting exercise in a Positive Psychology book I’m reading led to an unexpected insight yesterday.

The task asked the reader to imagine being given 3 wishes by a genie. What would you wish for and what do the wishes tell you about your life and approach to things?

My first immediate thought was for Younger Munchkin to learn to manage his ADHD so that he can be happy, successful etc.
What struck me is I didn’t just wish it ‘fixed’ because I really do love him the way he is and the ADHD is a part of that, and who we all are. My desire is simply that he learns to manage it, so it doesn’t lead him into trouble or hurt his relationships later down the track with others whose love is not so unconditional. My wish isn’t based on a need to change who he is, but out of fear for his future happiness.

And then I realised, that I really need to stop dreading and feeling exasperated at all the difficult situations we encounter on a day-to-day basis with him because it is THOSE many scenarios which are providing on-going training for him and will eventually lead him to achieve my wish. In fact, there’s nothing else that could teach him better. We NEED them!

This new perspective hit home throughout today as I found myself grateful (yes, never thought I’d say it) for the spitfire and stubborn moments. Grateful for the teaching moments that arose so frequently and that these are happening now in the young years with just family (mainly) to witness it – a safe place for him to be this way and learn as he goes on his journey.

And for me to learn alongside him, all the many lessons he can offer me.

I listened to Ajahn Brahm’s 2016/2017 New Year’s Eve Dhamma lecture this morning whilst I worked. He urged people to let go of their baggage from past years before entering this new one, giving several analogies which highlighted that to make room for embracing new experiences, we have to let the old stuff go.

Such good advice, and timely for us as both munchkins are now into a new phase of schooling and about to embark on new adventures. I was reminded also to let go of the future, something my anxiety makes very hard to do as I know how badly the ADHD impacts on my kids interactions and I have a lot of fears about their year ahead. The quote above from Thich Nhat Hanh perhaps sums me up?

Part of me thinks this is fair and reasonable as ADHD taints our lives so strongly, but part of me thinks we could possibly all find reasons why letting go is hard, and perhaps my ‘reasons’ are just as unjustified.

The thing that struck me most though, was Ajahn Brahms comment that all we can do is focus on the present. And if we are truly in the moment, doing what needs to be done/can be done… then THAT is what will take care of the future. It’s the ONLY thing that can lead to good things in the future. We create it now.

And with that sage advice firmly in mind, I am pledging to do my best to being more present and mindful this year.

This means:

First and foremost, taking my medication every day because this is what will ensure higher rates of success in everything else I do.

Eating well and getting adequate sleep, regularly

Doing things I enjoy several times a week – drumming, art, sculpture, whatever.

Recognising anger is useless, and unnecessary and disengaging from it for all the reasons I know I should.

Being kinder to myself and allowing myself many, many chances to fail and succeed as I develop these habits.

I notice as I write that this year doesn’t involve planning to stick to routines or being more organised….for the first time in …forever.

I finally realised, that these things done now, will lead to those other things later.

I’ve found myself encouraging my students with story ideas this term as several have chosen to write a children’s book as their personal project.
Amidst the many ideas we bounced and played with (some of them highly amusing and potential gems), I’ve found myself thinking that I’d really like to write a children’s book before I die.

Jackie French, when asked about the writing process said, ‘If you need to do lots of research for a book, you don’t know enough to write it – you won’t know what you don’t know. Books need to come from primary material, not books others have written about a subject.’

It’s made me think. I have an awful lot of ADHD related ‘primary material’ to borrow from. And I wish there’d been some good children’s books to support my children’s journey through the younger years.

I have the seed of an idea, a handful of sketches…and a dream to do something special with them.

There are times when despite all the everyday rubbish which makes you want to tear your hair out, you realise you’re doing something right as a parent and are in fact succeeding in raising wonderful human beings.

I’ve spent the last 24 hours laid out on the couch in and out of sleep as I try to manage a migraine (spot the end of term burnout I have ). Hubby left for work at midday and I realised the best option for everyone was just to let the kids have an afternoon of computer games – a rare over indulgence opportunity. But short of turning them into grumpy little goblins, they dutifully turned the screens off this evening, served up dinner including mine, organised dessert and brought me some, were polite and respectful to each other the whole time, put on ‘Deadly 60’ so we could watch together in the lounge, then cleaned up (even taking my dishes up to the kitchen) scraped plates, put the dishwasher on, fed the dogs, brushed their teeth, got hot water bottles sorted (even mine) and got themselves to bed. All I had to do was say goodnight and tuck them in. And THEN when I got to my room, I found my bed had been turned down and the heater had been put on for me so the room was warm.